I’ve seen several posts where people are kind of bitching about this gas-powered snowboard. But I think it’s pretty dope. Marrying the snowboard with the Go-Ped, my only issue is with it’s limited 6.5 horse power engine that’s rated for humanoids weighing under 250lbs.

Perhaps if they dropped the price point to $1,000.00 they could develop a strong enough following to start modding these things and making them worth the ride. I wonder what a better air-intake system would do to these beasts?

Seriously, oh dear eco-whiners, what is not awesome about this?

I see another grand way to deal with our long, vicious Chicago winter.

“Mark your calendars for Sunday, October 11, 2009. The Hoosier Mountain Bike Association is pleased to announce the 5th Annual Brown County Breakdown – HMBA Epic Ride. Come support the HMBA for our biggest fundraising event, and enjoy an epic ride on beautiful trails within one of the largest and best-preserved contiguous hardwood forests in the Midwest. It isn’t a race, it’s just a great ride in the woods with a few hundred of your closest friends! The ride begins and ends at beautiful Brown County State Park near Nashville, Indiana. We have a full weekend of events planned, so please join us on Saturday, October 10 as well.”

I’m gonna try and get my Tasajara functional again and head down for this ride. They’ve got a hog roast the night of the event that I’d like to hit up as well. We’ll see, it’s about a 4 hour drive, but it looks like it would be worth it.

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The Alstrom brothers, those two fine fellows who have worked their fat fingers into near frenzy building a playground for the many beer denizens of this tiny rock to rally upon, have, among other things, a quite impressive dossier of information on our fermented wonder over at their BeerAdvocate website. While at the site, aside from reading and reviewing beers you can also learn about the best glassware for drinking beer, how to taste beer, the different kinds of hops available and their history, you can read all about every beer style available, how to brew beer, how to pair beer with your favorite food or cheese, and why you should support your local breweries, among other things.

But, one of my favorite articles I’ve come across so far at the Beer Advocate website is “Tips to Turn Your Bar Into A Better Beer Bar“. As with every thing they do, the Alstrom’s have, in this short little ditty, managed to make portable a few strong and effective means for bar owners to not only become more knowledgeable about beer, but give them actionable steps in order to see that knowledge applied in service of a better beer world for everyone.

“The cost of giving into too many of these mega-brewery corps and wasting your time with their “order takers” (many don’t deserve to be called brewery representatives) is your bar turns into just another bar and your customers are faced with the same boring selection of beers. It also does nothing to help support the local beer scene.”

Read the whole article here.

We mentioned it briefly in our interview with Half Acre Beer Company’s Gabriel Magliaro, but I wanted to give it it’s own post as well. This Friday, October 2nd at the new Half Acre Beer Company’s storefront is the 3rd Annual Festiv-Ale to help raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

The event is from 7:30 – 10:30. A $50 ticket gets you unlimited tastings from 12 area breweries and heavy appetizers. The $75 ticket gets you entry an hour earlier, a brewery tour, a t-shirt and the right to ridicule every $50 ticket purchaser at least once during the evening. The $75 ticket kind of sells itself, no?

On October 2nd the doors to the retail store for the Half Acre Beer Company will officially become open to the public when they host the 3rd annual Festiv-Ale at their brand new north Lincoln Ave. location. And, with the opening of the Half Acre storefront, another new milestone will be set for beer drinking in our fair city of Chicago.

Sitting in the heart of the beer-loving midwest and long believed to be a town of beer drinkers, Chicago plays host to, depending on who you ask, anywhere from about 350 – 1800 bars. But, despite it’s reputation and the staggering number of places you might find yourself indulging in this heavenly concoction, Chicago has, until very recently, been a bit anemic on the craft beer tip. It’s a bit embarrassing really, what with Wisconsin to the north of us and Michigan to the east, Two Brothers out in Warrenville. Hell, even Indiana has 3 Floyd’s.

However, in the past couple years we’ve seen the rise of two new breweries within the confines of Chicago proper, Metropolitan Brewery and Half Acre Beer Company. Both standing as a testament to the spirit of Chicago and quickly becoming ambassadors for the City in their own right, these two craft beer establishments have helped put new life into Chicago’s beer scene that, for too many years, had become a bit boring being home to only one brewery, Goose Island. But, as craft beer continues to explode around the country and an undeniably exciting beer renaissance is under way, could it be we’re seeing Chicago transform from it’s pilsner induced slumber into becoming a notable contender with other great beer cities around the country? Ok, fair enough, that may be putting the cart before the clydesdale a bit, but, however you slice it, it’s an exciting time to be a beer glutton here in the city of broad shoulders.

Half Acre Beer Company bills itself as a “community based brewing company” and boasts a steady line up of 4 delicious beers from their very solid Over Ale to it’s amazing Daisy Cutter Pale Ale which, in my estimation, stands just atop the Surly Furious as the tastiest Pale Ale I’ve been blessed to wrap my big fat fish lips around. In addition to brewing a roster of beers that challenge you not to drink them Half Acre also supports a competitive bike team and a number of socially conscious organizations helping to make good on their claim as a “community based” organization.

In anticipation of the opening the Half Acre storefront at 4257 N. Lincoln Ave, which will be opening the first week in October, we shot some questions over to the brains and brawn behind Half Acre, Gabriel Magliaro, which he was kind enough to answer:

As far as I’m aware Chicago now has 3 local breweries to the city proper – Goose Island, Metropolitan, and you guys, Half Acre. How do you fit into this collection? Do you see your roles as competitive, or adding to a growing Craft Beer community both in Chicago and nationally, or both?
GM:I don’t see us as competitors. Chicago is a big town and there’s room for all of us to exist. If a bar has 10 beers on tap I’d rather see locals have one and let the out-of-town breweries fall into the remaining slots.

How do you differentiate yourself from Goose Island and Metropolitan… or any other Craft Beer for that matter?
GM:DIfferentiation comes in a bunch of forms, I suppose. We like to think our vibe has a different feel. We’re a young company, both in existence and how old we are as people. I think we have a level of sophistication, but also have younger edge to our identity. Beer wise, Metro is brewing Lagers, and they’re committed to that, which is great. Goose has dabbled in everything and has a huge portfolio that’s easily accessed. We brew beers we want to drink and try to make them as interesting for us as possible – we hope that carries out to the consumer.

There seems to be a very strong sense of local Chicago pride to Half Acre which shows, most obviously, in the Beer Hunt’s that you host. What is it that makes you so proud to be in Chicago and why did you choose to show that through something like the Beer Hunt?
GM:Chicago is a great town, and I think most Chicagoans are very proud of their city. The Half Acre has various levels of meaning for us, and part of that is the natural inside this urban juggernaut that we live in. The hunt is a great way for us to explore the city, get outside on the motorcycle and have fun, then pass that on. Getting people out and about and enjoying themselves, we feel, is very positive.

Clearly Half Acre’s passions extend beyond the brewing of delicious beer. You also sponsor a competitive bicycle team and involve yourself in socially conscious activities like the upcoming Brews Not Bombs. Do you see a common thread between these interests, something that drives you to each of them however disparate or seemingly unrelated they are?
GM:We try to pair up with people that are motivated and having fun. We try to support as much as we can while not putting ourselves out of business. Half Acre Cycling is a great group of people who race to have fun and get better at it. It’s an easy fit.

Right now Daisy Cutter has a deep and rooted hold on my liver. It’s presently the finest Pale Ale I’ve been able to taste. Which is your preferred Half Acre Brew? What kind of brews should people be looking forward to in the future from Half Acre?
GM:I drink a lot of the Daisy, as well. We have a number of specialty brews coming out and have been trying to step out with new beers as much as possible. We have specialty release coming out in October called Magnus, a big Schwartz that we’re hoping will be delicious. Our goal is to release a specialty beer once a month and sell it in our store and other spots around town.

What’s the most memorable (flavor, location, event, and company all considered) beer you’ve ever drank?
GM:There’s been a lot of those, but one that sticks out in my mind right now was drinking some Ellie’s Brown at Avery in Boulder. I had had numerous beers before and the weather was clutch. I was drinking this beer, which is a great brown beer, when Ellie herself came running out of nowhere and basically landed on my lap. I love dogs, I love Colorado and beer.

You’re opening your brew pup here in less than a month. What should people expect from the Half Acre brew pub? And, of all the restaurants and bars in Chicago, why should they come to yours?
GM:We’re not opening a brewpub. We’re opening a retail store where people can buy beer directly from us. It should be unique. There will be offerings here that you can only get here. We will also carry beers and spirits from other companies that we admire.

Is there a Half Acre philosophy that is applied to your beer creations?
GM:Brew beer you want to drink.

When you’re not drinking your own beer what do like to drink?
GM:I drink the beer of others all the time. I try to support the locals and seek out the latest and greatest from those who I respect.

If there was one piece of advice you could give people to help them enjoy beer even more thoroughly than they do now, what would it be?
GM:Stop thinking so hard.

I’ve been on a mad heat for the custom design world of the internet to meet it’s worthy bride, the Koozie, for sometime now. Much to my delight I just ran across customink this afternoon, where now all of my custom koozie ambitions can come true.

The design tools aren’t perfect, but they do allow you to make quite a few choices and you can upload your own images. Minimum runs are 105 and come in at less than $2 dollars per Koozie. The site doesn’t offer the ability to market or sell your designs like threadless or cafepress, but you can email them to friends which is cool.

By the way, my roommate has already informed me that my design is base and classless, which, I thought, was the point of a koozie. So please lovely women of the world, swallow your righteous anger knowing that I have taken heed and am already a better man.

It looks like Wayne Coyne and Co. are celebrating their own World Naked Bike Ride as they shoot their new video for “Watching the Planets”.

You might remember my post about the Canyons Spring Gruv from a few weeks ago? Well, it looks like Steamboat Ski Resort is trying to match that, but they’re doing it both at the beginning and the end of the season.

From November 24 – December 18 and then again from April 4 – 11, Steamboat is offering Free Lift tickets. Or, at least, that is what they are calling it. For $687 you get 3 nights in a two-bedroom condo and 4x 2-day lift tickets. Do the math on that, that’s just over $170 a person for 2 days snowboarding and 3 nights at the mountain. Buy your third day pass at the full $76 price and you’re getting 3 days of snowboarding and 3 nights lodging for under $250!!

I’m keeping my eyes on the weather reports and jumping a plane at the first sighting of a good blow. This is an amazing ski package.

I’m thinking we’re going to see a lot more great ski deals like these this season, please post in the comments if you know of any.

“The BOSTON frame is designed around a patented folding system. This design eliminates the need to break the frame in order to fold the bike. Not only does this make folding easier but it makes this bike the strongest folding bike on the market. The Folding Integrated Technology (F.I.T.) is based around frame construction concepts designed for serious full suspension downhill bikes.”

Read more about the Montague Boston Folding Single Speed.